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Arrrrr me heartie this time out on the high sea we’ll be looking at Artifex Mundi latest outing on the Xbox on throw the ID Xbox scheme which is Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart. This is the first in the trilogy of Nightmares From The Deep games. It is a story driven adventure with a dash of horror, hidden object game with a few twists in the game play. So will this PC / mobile style game translate well onto the Xbox One or will it be left to walk the plank?

The story sees you playing as a female museum owner in the Caribbean, who has a new exhibit opening about the most fearsome pirate in the world Captain Henry Remington but as his body is being delivered during a storm, low and behold you have awakened his evil spirit.

So as payback for waking him from his slumber he decides to kidnap your daughter. You quickly realise that he wants to resurrect his mistress and the only way he can do this is with your daughter’s life force.

What follows is an adventure that will see you tracking down the evil Remington to save your daughter by solving puzzles in lots of different locations, like aboard a rotting pirate ship to a hidden island called Skull Island which itself has a ruined fortress as well as a catacomb system below its surface.

In teams of gameplay you move from scene to scene using the A button to interact with the environment and to pick up different objects to help solve the puzzles though at any point when you are face with a hidden object puzzle if you do not want to solve a puzzle you can press down on the d-pad and you enter a game of mah-jong which if you complete, by passes the puzzle you are on and you can’t fault these sections as the board reshuffles if you hit a stale mate move. The game has two mode a causal mode and an expert mode which is really just a hardcore mode the main difference between the two modes is that in expert mode there are no highlighted objects and no real clue of where to go in the game so I would strongly advice to play in the casual mode first time round, unless you’re a super detective.

The game also comes packed with the DLC chapter of the game that was released on PC and mobile platforms which picks up after the end of the main game so if you enjoy your time with it you’ll already find more content waiting for you at the end of your play through. Generally speaking a play through on casual should clock in at about the 4 to 6 hours mark, so you’ll get a good run for your money and that’s not including the DLC chapters.

In the visual department the scenes you move between are very well illustrated and crisp as they have been optimized for the Xbox One. The cut scenes though, are just not as crisp as in-game visuals not that there is a huge different between them and there do the job very well at moving the story forward. As for sound the background music does a great job at setting the mood and feeling as for the voice acting is perfectly serviceable is a little hammy at times.

The game moves at a steady rate and if I was to highlight any negatives other than the voice acting at times and the general back tracking to find pieces for some puzzles which itself isn’t a huge problem I found very little to complain about with the game especially as it’s a style of game I am not overly versed in and I enjoyed the change of pace it offered.

Overall Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart is enjoyable tale of high sea adventure with a nice horror vibe to it and is a great way to spend an evening or an afternoon and with it being just so different to most games that can be found on the Xbox One at the moment, I would say it’s definitely worth a look at its £7.99 entry price and there is also a demo available so you can give it a go for free as well. I hope Artifex Mundi plan on bringing the other chapters in the series to the Xbox One, if you looking for a break from blasting Spartans or drifting around corners at break neck speeds then this is the prefect Sunday afternoon game I would say if you’re not too scared.

Disclosure: Midlife Gamer were provided a copy of Nightmares From The Deep: The Cursed Heart by the publisher for review purposes. The title was reviewed over the course of three days. For more information on what our scores mean, plus details of our reviews policy, click here.

This entry was posted
on Thursday, October 29th, 2015 at 09:32 and is filed under Reviews.
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